Bertil Nilsson: Between Two Instants

METAL #31

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Kasia Bobula

WORDS BY

Steffen Michels

BERTIL NILSSON Between Two Instants There is something about photographer Bertil Nilsson that makes you want to move. When he came to London in 2004, the Swedish-born artist brought along a profound interest in the human body and its unique, physical capabilities. Due to a distinctively emotive affection for both dance and circus, however, Nilsson knows the quality he is looking for in an image goes beyond the purely physical. We speak to him to find out why a body in motion is also a body of motion.

METAL #31

PHOTOGR APHY

BER TIL NIL S SON

“I THINK THERE IS JUST SO MUCH YOU CAN DO WITH NATURE AND SORT OF OPEN LANDSCAPE. IT’S NICE TO WORK IN THE CITY, BUT IT’S JUST A LOT MORE LIMITING IN TERMS OF FINDING INTERESTING SPACES THAT ACTUALLY MEET WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR. IT’S A LOT HARDER. WHEREAS WHEN YOU’RE IN NATURE YOU CAN KIND OF LOOK AT ANY DIRECTION.” As lights are dimmed and the curtain rises, all eyes are on the stage. Dance and its many arenas have captivated our senses and cultivated our perception of the human experience in this world for as long as we can look back.

While the motivations behind any art form are generally subject to discussion, one thing seems certain: the ways in which we move communicate an immediacy language ceases to convey.

Thus, humans turn to the floors of ballet and the rings of circus. It is here that comedy and tragedy unfold in an equally undeniable manner and our gaze is both fixed upon the expressive body and simultaneously wanders, jumps and flies with it. In the age of virtually unlimited information on and access to our world through the internet, however, it would seem inappropriate for dance to be confined to venues once especially designed for it.

Arms and legs in Bertil Nilsson’s photographs are therefore stretched and thrown into the air wherever there is space to do so. On a quest to explore its special qualities, urban architecture as well as natural sceneries are only one instrument aimed at stripping the genre of dance down to its revelatory essence. The performers in Nilsson’s work renounce spectacular makeup and costumes. There are no concise instructions but complete, artistic freedom. What this approach manifests in a distinguished way is an element of rawness that got gradually lost as boards became stages and performances became shows. Considering our every move contains a trace of expression, this rawness can ultimately only disclose emotion. Feeling hence precedes expression.

As celebrated ballet dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, whose legacy found new significance in Wim Wenders’ 2011 directorial masterpiece Pina, once famously said in an interview: “I am not so interested in how people move but what moves them”. Taking these thoughts as a starting point, we ask Bertil Nilsson about his unique approach of capturing the beauty of the dancing body in his oeuvre.

You left rural Sweden for the big city, London, ten years ago. Both land and cityscapes are prominent in your work. Which do you prefer?

I don’t know. That is a good question. It probably changes on the basis of what I’m interested in at different points. But I think there is just so much you can do with nature and sort of open landscape. It’s nice to work in the city, but it’s just a lot more limiting in terms of finding interesting spaces that actually meet what I’m looking for. It’s a lot harder. Whereas when you’re in nature you can kind of look at any direction, you just have an infinite number of possibilities. I enjoy that probably the most.

Looking at your images, I think both architecture and natural environments are rather striking in them, as if to mimic and extend the body and its movement.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m interested in. It’s precisely how I approach using the context of the surroundings; to find some sort of interplay where there is a relationship between the two. Because otherwise, you could just go into a studio and have nothing as a backdrop and simply focus on the body and the movement or whatever. The reason to go somewhere else is to have some kind of relationship that makes it into something else.

Do you think people move differently in the city?

Yes, because there are big kind of practical things. I mean, this might be obvious but the surface on which you move sort of dictates in a sense what you can do as well. So obviously, if you have a very hard and flat surface, you can do different things than you can do in nature, where there are always a lot of practical issues in terms of dancing, moving and actually finding places where you can do that. There are things in the way and the ground might be sloping, it might be soft, it might be really hard, there might be thorns and things like that. And also, the way I work with artists is I always want them to kind of respond to the situation we’re in. So obviously there will be a different response from them in regards to where you put them, you know? If you’re in a big, open field or if you’re in some sort of enclosed, concrete structure. There would be a different response to that and, additionally, you wonder what you can potentially do with these different surfaces. Things like that.

These differences in the way your models respond are somewhat mirrored in how they go from heavily-contrived posture and control to physical passiveness. When is the human body the most communicative?

Well, they’re not models. That’s what I would say to start with. Because it’s always a collaboration and they’re always either circus artists or dancers, so I would never call them models. It’s a very difficult question. I don’t know if I have an answer to it. I mean, I’m always looking for new and unexpected combinations of the two: of them expressing something in a context, and also how that translates into an image that expresses something which might be completely different from what the intention of the performer is; what they’re trying to express and what it ends up expressing in the image…

Yes, there is a certain element of chance when you look at the work.

Yes, there is a big, big element of that because it’s become my process setting the scene; I always have an interest and I have some sort of overall idea of what it is that I’m looking for.

You go to a certain place or you bring certain props, you know? Powders or colours or whatever. But I don’t have an image in mind. It’s not like this is what we’re going to shoot and now we’re just going to do it. It’s putting those ele-

ments together and then seeing what comes out of that. Because it’s always – not always, but generally – the most unexpected things that are the most interesting.

I believe there is a certain urgency in your work that makes you imagine what it feels like bending, crouching, even flying like the people in the photographs. What role does this play?

You mean the kind of dynamic nature of it?

I mean that it has a direct impact on the viewer. You can’t help but imagine what it’s like for the performers because they are so active and demonstrate all this movement; you kind of see yourself doing the things they do.

Yeah, I’ve never heard that actually. It’s not like an active intention for me because I never actually thought about it like that. I mean what is interesting about creating any work is seeing how people respond to it and leaving enough room for people to respond to things differently.

Definitely. Dance is both physical and performative and your models are often unclothed. I find them very sensual but never sexual. How do you draw this line?

Well, I don’t particularly draw the line in a sense of consciously doing it. I know what the work is about. When I work with people without clothes or naked or whatever, it’s about the body and it’s about the kind of context.

So there is no sexual element. That is not the reason why they’re not wearing clothes. I think because that’s never the intention and it’s never what I want to see, I would imagine that’s why it doesn’t come across like that as well, because it’s just not what I’m interested in.

It is refreshing to see that since we are so accustomed to interpreting the naked body as something sexual because that’s how media predominantly uses it nowadays.

Definitely. I very strongly feel that you can separate the two. And different cultures respond differently to that as well. How easy it is for them to separate someone being naked from someone being sexual! But I guess I’ve almost taken a kind of naturalist approach to it. I mean, it is very classical. It’s been going on for thousands of years. It’s quite a recent thing that as soon as you see any part of the body, like a nipple or anything like that, that it would have some sort of sexual or pornographic connotation automatically.

I still have to ask you: Is a good dancer a good lover?

I have no idea (laughs).

You wouldn’t know?

I wouldn’t know. Well, I guess I would know to some extent. But no, I don’t think so. I don’t think there is any automatic connection between the two.

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BER TIL NIL S SON

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PHOTOGR APHY

“IF YOU TRAIN FOR SPORTS, YOU’RE TRAINING YOUR BODY TO KIND OF PERFECTION, TO DO A SPECIFIC TASK. BUT THAT TASK IS TO WIN OR TO COMPETE AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE AND WIN. OBVIOUSLY IN DANCE YOU’RE TRAINING YOUR BODY TO PERFECTION, BUT THE GOAL IS TO COMMUNICATE SOMETHING ARTISTICALLY, THERE IS NO COMPETItiON.” Unlike other sports, dance is very democratic in a sense that you don’t have to master it to enjoy it. Can it still produce a classical sports hero? And do you photograph heroes?

Well, I don’t think in the sense of heroes. I’ve never sort of considered that side, I’m only just considering it right now. I mean I think the thing is that dance and circus are not about winning. They’re about art. So it’s about expression and it’s about self-realization and communicating something. Obviously, there are people who will be successful and can be inspirational to others but I think it’s just less relevant. It is democratic as well in a sense that everyone can dance but also everyone can have ideas that they want to express and we all choose different ways to do it. So dance and circus are languages of expression. And in my work, I am taking those languages and just experiment with a photographic and visual language, trying to find interesting intersections or cross points.

So it’s almost like they’re closer to art than they are to actual sport.

Well, for me they are not sports at all. That’s what I would say. It’s definitely an art form.

Obviously there is an athletic element, and what dancers and acrobats do in terms of their physical training and their regiments and the kind of dedication and the physical pursuit is definitely on par with what athletes do in sports, but I think the intentions are different.

I agree. It’s a different paradigm in a way. A different objective.

Well, if you train for sports, you’re training your body to kind of perfection, to do a specific task. But that task is to win or to compete against other people and win. And obviously in dance you’re doing the same things and training your body to perfection, but the goal is to communicate something artistically. So there is no competition; although it is true there are competitions in dance and in circus and things like that and there are elements crossing over, but what I’m interested in is the sort of artistic side of it.

Some of your images seem to capture a decisive moment in the style of CartierBresson. A moment where – by chance – every element aligns to make for a unique composition and feel...

Yes, I definitely think there is a sort of decisive moment approach to a lot of the work. Because

BER TIL NIL S SON

it is my process to let things unfold and for me to take lots of pictures from lots of different angles and just see when things line up exactly in that sense. And then, that is the image! There is a lot of connection to that idea.

Is this concept one of your inspirations?

Not knowingly. That is to say, I’m aware of his work but I’m not studying it. My process just developed organically from working with artists and just finding a way to get the most authentic expression from them.

I definitely see the connection, though. In fact, it was one of the first things I noticed looking at the pictures because they’re never too contrived. As I mentioned before, there is always that element of chance and I believe dance as an art form might be something that is very inviting for that kind of thing to happen anyway.

Yes, there is a fluidity of movement. And certainly if you have a classically-trained ballet dancer, you have these kind of perfect movements or poses that you could focus on if you wanted to, and then it becomes very much about capturing that at its peak. But what’s much more interesting to me in terms of finding something new are all the things that go in between, and also seeing that from a different sort of raw, unpolished, unplanned point of view. Not being like okay, we’re going to set it up and then we’re going to have this perfectly-positioned dancer, they’re going to be right there and it’s going to be beautiful. Then you go away from something that is actually interesting because it is no longer spontaneous. And also what I feel is that if I tell someone very exactly what to do, it takes away energy that is kind of very subtly there in the image otherwise. Even in a lot of the images in my work which look very still and very serene, or look at least as if they could be sort of posed, there is often some movement involved that I’m just capturing a moment of. It just gives a slightly different energy to it that I can feel and I guess some people can feel it as well when they look at the pictures.

Absolutely. In Naturally, the movement incorporates paint and powder on the bare body which reminded me of tribal adornment. Can you explain this use?

Well, the whole concept for Naturally kind of became that you have this natural environment, you have us who come from this natural world but then what we do intellectually and with our bodies is quite far away from this organic side of it, you know? In terms of dance and movement. A lot of the movement is very artificial.

You look for these straight lines and geometric things and you point your toes and all these things sort of go against the natural way of using your body. So I just became interested in putting in something very artificial. Or something that has kind of like an organic origin to it but it’s also something very artificial to introduce to the scene. And what’s interesting is that when I started doing it, I was doing these different experiments and showing them to people and especially when I started using the paint – how people reacted to it, seeing all these different things that are completely unintended by me! You know, there is this image of someone on the beach and there is this red paint kind of running off him and I was not thinking about

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that being blood or fetuses or whale hunting or anything like that. But when you release it into the wild, it takes its own life.

It becomes its own thing.

Yes, so that is kind of like the whole thing about the project. I am interested in how I as a creator can put something quite small into a scene and it just takes on all these different meanings that are not really there.

See, I personally felt reminded of tribal body painting even though you didn’t have any particular patterns or anything. But there was still something about people in nature with athletic bodies being painted that instantly rang a bell.

I think that is really interesting. Just how little things like the colour or the placement of a certain powder in the air kind of draws parallels because we all have these cultural experiences.

So, depending on your background, if you look at an image you will see it quite differently.

Although what it depicts is the most common thing that we have, you know? We all know nature, we all know our bodies. So in a sense, that is all very universal but then you add something else and it changes how different people see it.

And what about the geometrical light projections on the body in Luminescence?

What about them?

Well, they’re geometrical so they’re not natural. It’s artificial light. It looks like laser actually...

Yes, it is laser. It is a slightly similar concept because I’m using the body and I want to contrast it with something artificial. And yes, the whole thing is about geometric patterns and I am making this literally as we speak – well, not as we speak but before and after we speak.

It’s a site-specific installation in the space of the Roundhouse foyer and there are all these curves and lines and concrete and brick and whatever it is, so it’s all going to kind of interact with that and it’s all going to be integrated into the structure of the building. I’m playing with taking the natural body and putting in these geometric, artificial things and seeing what comes out of that.

Due to the landscapes being awe-inspiring and somewhat mystical, some pictures from Naturally resemble Caspar David Friedrich paintings and I immediately linked them to Romanticism. What visual art is your work informed by?

Sorry, who was the painter you mentioned?

Caspar David Friedrich.

I don’t think I know his work.

He was a Romantic painter from Germany.

Right… I guess I tend to not pre-intellectualize my own work if that makes sense. I mean I don’t have a formal art education so I’m self-taught and never really thought about my work in a theoretical, formal way before. I discover things and think about things as I do them. It’s a difficult question for me to answer because obviously yes, my images are inspired by visual arts of all different sorts including architecture and all these things but, to be honest,I would never be able to remember the artists. There are pho-

tographers who I find interesting, and sculptors and loads of work that I see all the time and find very interesting, I’m just very bad at actually keeping track of who has done it. I just don’t think like that. There is no list of people who have inspired me. Surely, if I sat down and really thought about it – which I probably should because this is a recurring question – there would be some clarity (laughs).

I guess it is difficult when you constantly surround yourself with art, whether it’s visual or any other type of art. You kind of consume these things and you become so accustomed to doing it that you start skipping names.

Yes, or you have names but it’s not something you can pinpoint. But I mean, dance and circus are big inspirations in the work and I know they are not visual in that sense but to me, that’s where I normally get the most kind of actively inspired.

Well, the circus as an entertainment form has inspired you to create a whole book.

Yes, it’s where I get inspired, visually looking at shows, experiencing shows… Often, I think with visual arts, it’s like a trickle down thing.

Because you clearly build up your own aesthetic and your own kind of interests. It’s just about creating your own thing within that sphere. So it’s less about seeing something and being like oh, I’m going to do that or I’m going to take something from that.

Circus artists are known for their unique, performance-inspired fashion yet they are naked in your book. How come?

What do you mean by performance-inspired fashion?

Well, they historically wear these costumes which are very elaborate and colourful and

beautiful and you’re not showing them which is interesting.

I think that is true in terms of the more traditional circus or the sort of circus that is on that border, like the Cirque du Soleil that goes for a somewhat fantastical style. But the kind of circus I am interested in is much more pared down. It is much more about contemporary dance and people generally just wear very simple, basic clothes. But when I did Undisclosed, the book I did about circus which was my first big project and also the first time I worked with the naked body, the whole concept was to take away all those things people see on the surface which included the stage, the lighting, the makeup, obviously the costumes and to just focus on the circus artists and the equipment they work on. To kind of explore that relationship and the work that goes into it.

I was just fascinated by circus. It was a way for me to explore that. Then fed into further projects like Naturally, where I continue working with the body.

So what is it about dance that stimulates you at the end of the day? Is it that feeling of transcending sheer movement and experiencing a sense of spirituality?

I’m fascinated both with dance and the circus and it started with me being really fascinated with people wanting to do it because it’s just not a glamorous or easy career path to kind of take, to go down that route. There is so much training, there are so many points where you can get side-tracked and basically get injured.

Or even when you’re working, you can get injured or even die – in the case of circus more than dance. So there is that. That people have that drive and interest to dedicate themselves to it. I find that very inspiring and interesting.

And then I am also very interested in the extremeness of the body. More or less, we all have the same starting point but some people take

their physical starting point and they just push it so much further. To the point where, when you look at it, you’re like that’s impossible!

But it’s not. It’s just a lot of training. Obviously, there is sometimes some sort of predisposition but it’s not as extreme as you would think.

You’re not born a dancer. You’re not born a ballet dancer or an acrobat, you know? It’s 95% training or more. So I just think that is really interesting… The boundary for us as humans of what we can actually do with our bodies.

Do you dance yourself?

No. I am terrible.

Really? Terrible dancer?

Terrible dancer, yes. No training. No talent (laughs).